


Adaptation

by Enigel



Category: Invasion (TV)
Genre: F/M, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-02 06:06:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enigel/pseuds/Enigel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for: hinkydoodle in the Yuletide 2008 Challenge</p>
    </blockquote>





	Adaptation

**Author's Note:**

> Written for: hinkydoodle in the Yuletide 2008 Challenge

Tom Underlay's life felt like it had been sliced neatly in two: before the plane crash, and after the plane crash. No one who knew his circumstances blamed him for it, it was very common for PTSD sufferers, they all said.

The doctors said that the disconnected feeling and his lack of acute grief over his wife were also textbook symptoms of PTSD. They'd sympathized, patted him on the arm, and assured him things would eventually be all right again.

Tom didn't feel like things were wrong at all. He knew it might be just another symptom, but he really felt all right, for a crash survivor. Even before being allowed out of the hospital, he already felt better than before.

He felt like a new man.

He'd also met the most amazing woman, Dr Mariel Varon. From the first moments of her presence in his room he'd felt his fledgling sense of belonging crystallize into a firm decision. Most people would say that choosing to move into the little city where he'd crashed might be a symptom that he'd hit his head, too. Tom Underlay was not most people, especially now, when he felt a new sense of awareness within him. Moving to Homestead because he felt like he belonged here made perfect sense in his new personal world order.

"Call it my lucky town," he told some people. "I might have almost died here, but I survived, didn't I?"

His former employers weren't very reluctant to let him go, but that was the only cloud of suspicion on his newly found horizon. He got the feeling that there was more to it - because of the weird tests Dr Feldt had done, because of the two guys from NTSB who questioned him and the two guys in black suits that had never contacted him directly, but kept lurking nearby.

He had no regrets or nostalgia for his past life when he left the hospital to begin a new one. Mariel's warm hand on his arm was also a promise for the future. He'd never questioned if she would accept to be a part of his life in the way he felt she was meant to. What he felt meant that she would, and he only had to let time do its work, with a little nudge along the way.

* * *

There was more to Homestead than Mariel, though, even if she shone the brightest in Tom's constellation of reasons to stay there. Now and then, he felt a strange sense of kinship when he met certain people, a kinship not entirely unlike family or the solidarity of military ranks.

In a small town, people know who they are, and if they somehow forget, they have friends and relatives, co-workers and church-goers to remind them.

Those people were... different. though. Some of them had unspoken questions to which neither friends nor the house of the Lord (Tom wasn't much of a believer, but he knew to respect the force of an institution) could offer adequate responses. Tom was able to recognize them, to feel their confusion and disconnectedness as if they were his own, and those people were drawn to him for guidance.

He didn't think that was weird at all. A good sheriff is more than just the protector of a community's property and physical integrity. A good sheriff is a protector, period.

* * *

"I thought you and Russell were... that you weren't happy," he said cautiously.

They were having a quick dinner in a small place close to the hospital. He'd convinced Mariel to take a little lunch break with him.

"You of all people should know how unhealthy it is, eating sandwiches all the time, doctor," he'd said to tease her, and had been rewarded with a smile. "And you'll be very close should an emergency happen."

The topic had somehow gotten to Mariel's marriage. Tom didn't want to scare her away with too bold a question, but something in him was always pushing to set things right, as he saw them.

Mariel put her fork down and smiled her gentle, luminous smile; something in her stance was... shy, or guarded.

"We decided to give it one more chance. We've had something beautiful in the beginning, and..." she touched her belly, with that instinctive gestures of future mothers everywhere. "There might be something beautiful again."

She radiated hope and tenderness, and Tom felt them touch him in turn.

"I'm happy for you," he said, trying to be honest; he felt torn between happiness for her, because she was feeling it, and doubt about his own vision about a future with her.

"Soon we'll know if it's a boy or a girl," Mariel was saying. "I'm hoping for a girl myself. Two boys could become unmanageable really quick," she grinned fondly, and then stopped. "I'm boring you with my tales of future motherhood."

"No, no, Mariel. Not at all," Tom said, heart-felt this time. "You could never bore me. I really am happy for you," he told her, placing a hand over her arm and squeezing gently. "Come on, tell me more. Have you decided on a name yet?"

"Yes. She'll be my little Rose, if she's a girl," Mariel said, and Tom felt the thread of hope surge again, suddenly.

He'd kept the rose he had wanted to offer her in the hospital, the first time he'd ever met her. No one but him knew.

* * *

There would be more people like him in the future, Tom knew. He knew it like he'd known that Homestead was his new home, that he'd been destined to tie his destiny to this community for good.

Those people would have stronger bodies, new abilities that might shock or even terrify them, and a lot of confusion.

So far he'd been able to deal with the few cases that popped up, but people were people, and statistics would sooner or later stake their claim over some of them, marking them as problem cases. Tom didn't like the word 'outcast', but adaptation, as he understood it, would mean a reasonable compromise between the old and the new, and those who couldn't adapt would have to be isolated for the good of the community as a whole.

Mr Szura seemed to him just the kind of man who could be trusted with these cases.

* * *

"It's going to be a very civilized divorce, Tom. Russell and I are not that kind of people."

"I know, honey, I know. I just want you to know I'll be here for you every step of the way, for anything, anytime. Forever."

"I know, Tom." Mariel took his hands in hers. "You're only saying it to me every day."

"That's because every day with you is a day I count myself lucky to have."

He took her right hand and kissed it.

"What about the children?"

"Like I said, we're not going to fight over them. We both want the best for our kids, Tom, and Russell is a good man, a good father. I don't want to take them away from him. They love him, and he loves them. We'll agree on shared custody."

"You are a wonderful mother," he said and leaned to kiss her.

In the door frame he saw Kira, looking at them with a melancholy expression. He smiled to her encouragingly. He was sure Mariel would be a good step-mother to Kira, too, and Kira would come to see this in time.


End file.
